Though Grim From the Grey King Shadows Fall
by liptonrm
Summary: Even the faith of angels can be tried. Spoilers through SPN 4x20 The Rapture and for all of The Dark is Rising.


Title: Though Grim From the Grey King Shadows Fall

Disclaimer: We all know that these characters are not mine. FYI they're Eric Kripke's and Susan Cooper's, just in case there was any confusion.

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Set after SPN episode 4x18 (On The Head of a Pin) with spoilers through 4x20 (The Rapture) and general spoilers for _The Dark is Risng_ sequence.

Author's Note: I imagine that the initial inspiration for this story can be blamed on dotfic and all of the DiR-shaped hand-flapping we did at the beginning of SPN Season Four. There was just no way I could not write this out when it popped into my head. So Happy Unbirthday to us both, I suppose. =D

Summary: Even the faith of angels can be tried.

* * *

The sun shined cold and bright in a crystal blue sky. The world sparkled, covered in a blanketing of delicate, deadly, beautiful snow. Children sped down a nearby hill on sleds, racing each other and their own shadows, their delighted screams ringing through the knife-sharp air.

Castiel sat on a bench at the bottom of the hill and watched their joyous exhilarations. He allowed himself to get lost in the purity of their emotions and the simplicity of their delight. Perhaps it was foolish of him to take solace in humanity; Uriel would have remonstrated him and swiftly reminded him of humanity's baseness. Uriel would clinically detail the chemical and biological processes that prompted the childrens' abandon and would have rejected the very notion that anything good could come of it.

But Uriel was dead, more lost than any human soul could ever be. He was worse than dead, his betrayal coloring his every word and action in a sickly, devastating hue. He had been Castiel's brother, his comrade-in-arms, his friend, but now he was gone and all Castiel could do was grieve for the shining pillar of strength Uriel had once been.

There was no comfort here. He no longer felt that unbreakable filament of succor and grace that flowed from the Almighty. God's echoing silence pierced him and for the first time since the Creation insidious doubt crept through the foundations of his sure faith. He had lost his vision of the beauty of the Plan and was left alone with a splintered abstract that pained rather than comforted.

Superimposed over it all was Dean Winchester's anguish; his broken depths of despair that Castiel could not heal. He was beginning to fear that the end was not worth the suffering that achieving it had already caused. He was beginning to doubt that there had ever been a Plan at all.

He was so wrapped in his own pain, his doubts and misgivings, that he did not hear the crisp crackle of snow trampled by an even tread or feel the prickle of deep, steady eyes that regarded him with a wisdom well beyond their earthly years. He was only pulled back to awareness by the physical and psychic echo of another's proximity caused by a person sitting on the bench's other end.

The man smiled at him when Castiel looked over. His features were bland and nondescript, his grin wide and a little foolish. He was the sort of individual who faded into the crowd and whom you forgot the moment after you left his presence. "Hello there," he said, his accent making the words brisk and clean. "Lovely weather we're having."

Castiel blinked at him, the man's almost perfectly imperfect humanity deceiving him for less than a hairbreadth's of time. He nodded politely in recognition, as one equal to another. "Old One, I did not expect to see you here. Have you decided to involve yourself in our cause?"

The man's visage changed slightly, he seemed to grow in stature as an almost palpable aura of knowledge and power surrounded him. He nodded in reply. "Greetings, angel. And so far as your cause is the cause of the Light I support it." He raised an eyebrow in amusement. "However, I'm only here in the States at this precise moment to visit my uncle."

"Merely a visit?" Castiel questioned, his voice dry. "Forgive me if I doubt family obligation is the sole reason for your presence."

The Old One grinned with self-deprecating charm. "Your doubt is, perhaps, well-founded. I am the Watchman and I could not let the current conflict go unobserved." His grin widened. "Though I really am visiting my uncle. Killing two birds with one stone, as the case may be."

Castiel frowned, annoyed in spite of himself at the very human way that the Old One—Will Stanton was the name emblazoned across his soul—danced around a simple, straightforward answer. His patience was worn very thin indeed. "But do you fight with us or against us?" he demanded.

A kind, regretful look flickered over Will's face. "I am neither with you or against you," he evenly replied. "My battles have been fought and I must not become involved with your current conflict or any other." His mouth thinned with frustration. "I am tasked with watching and nothing more, no matter how desperately I may wish it were otherwise."

A flash of insight shot through Castiel's being, as blinding and illuminating as lightning. He, too, knew the agony of forced inaction. The trials of the present had erased from his conscious thought the pain of those long years when he could only observe humanity in all of its misery and degradation and could do nothing to allay even one person's suffering.

He had barely felt the perverse obscenity of Hell as he pulled Dean Winchester's soul from damnation. He had been so wrapped in the ecstasy of action and effect that nothing could give him pause. After all of the endless years of hopeless futility he had finally been able to act, to save.

Bitterness twisted through him, blighting that incandescent moment. He had been given the gift of effecting salvation only to turn and bring damnation down on the very soul for which he had striven. He would never regret saving Dean from Hell but that part of him that had so longed for action now desired to be relieved of the burdens that involvement had caused.

Will nodded, his eyes kind and gentle, as if he could see and understand all of Castiel's misgivings.

"I-" a shameful hesitation stuttered Castiel's voice. "I required that a man perform a task and in its execution caused him great pain. I begin to doubt that my cause is entirely just."

"The Sword of the Light cuts both ways," Will quietly acknowledged, his eyes lost in memory. "It's hard when good people, people we care about, are injured by that which we serve."

"Hard is a word for it." Though Castiel scarcely thought that it encompassed the difficulty of the experience. But he doubted that any word in mortal language could suffice.

Will ducked his head and a rueful half-smile indicated his concurrence with Castiel's inflected message. "I wish I could assuage your doubts but I can't. I'm as ignorant of the ultimate outcome as you are." He shrugged. "The only sure thing I absolutely know is that regardless of what we or our counterparts on the opposite side do it will all come down to the simple decisions of humankind." His hand moved in a wide, encompassing gesture. "This is their world and its future lies with them, for better or for worse."

Castiel turned and regarded the children who shot down the slope of the hill. He truly looked at them—his head slightly tilted to one side in concentration in an unconscious habit he'd gleaned from Jimmy Novak—seeing them with a clear vision unencumbered by the indulgent emotions that had warped his perceptions before.

Suddenly one of the sleds crashed and a child flipped out. A tense moment of shocked stillness stretched and then with a jerk the child began to scream.

The child's parents ran to his aid. They ran across the snow and fell to their knees beside him. With tender words and hands they examined his wounds and wiped his tears away. The father gently picked him up and carried him out of the park, careful not to jostle his injured arm, while the mother ran ahead to get the car started. Other adults offered assistance and condolence to the harried parents and a bundled child, a stranger, braved speeding sleds to scoop up the wayward toy and return it to its owners.

This all happened without grandeur or fanfare, the natural goodness and decency of humanity that deserved angelic awe and praise but neither required nor requested it.

"Trust them," Will softly counseled, the finality of steel in his voice. "They're stronger and better than they realize. Their inherent compassion is often wiser than our aloof rigidity allows us to see."

Castiel nodded in silent accord. A feeling of peace settled over him. Trust, yes, he could trust Dean. All else may be obscure and uncertain but that, at least, was superbly clear.

A small smile involuntarily softened the corners of his mouth as a tendril of warmth unfurled in his chest. There was so much yet to do.


End file.
